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Published: March 21st 2006
When planning my trip to Indonesia earlier this year I had no idea that my visit would coincide with the 60th Anniversary of the Republic, which was a nice surprise. Not really knowing what to expect from it, plus the fact that various celebrations would be spread out over the gigantic city throughout the day meant that I had absolutely no idea what was going on or where I was supposed to go. Luckily I had some local help. I spent the day together with residents Endah and Ferrika who took me over to the waterfront at Ancol to watch one of those mad activities that makes you break a sweat just by looking on. As you can imagine, traffic was even worse than usual, and the entire Ancol area was vibrating like a beehive from all those cars. The sweltering heat was in no way softened by any kind of sea breeze either. Walking the crowds the final leg along the water I glanced towards the horizon where water normally meets the sky, only this time the horizon was a perfect straight line of ships, presumably waiting to dock over at the busy commercial port. My earlier impressions of the
PLM:s over at Kota suddenly shrunk considerably. I hope I can check that place out on my next visit. Anyway, back to Ancol...
We found a decent spot on the side of a road and sat down to wait for the big spectacle to begin. Endah explained the simple rules. In front of us was a big field where tall poles of coconut palmtree had been erected in neat lines a few meters apart. I lost count but it was something like maybe 12 lines of 10 poles each or so. Each pole had a small crown at the top, from which a number of commodities were suspeneded. Umbrellas, towels, buckets, motor cycle helmets and on each pole a bike. At the given signal a number of teams would then attempt to scale the poles to reach the freebies and collect them. To make the event a bit more interesting, the poles are greased in motor oil. It was pretty amazing to see these guys spring into action, literally crawling one step forward and sliding two steps back. Most teams quickly managed to get a man up to the top in short time.
When we'd had enough watching
the climb (and of the maddening heat, I noticed my skin had literally begun boiling on my left arm) we walked back to grab a cab to go downtown. We were not exactly alone at having this brilliant idea. It seems half the city was at Ancol and they were all eager to get out. This onslaught was further brought to a nice standstill because of carelessly and recklessly parked cars and buses, and naturally there were no overseers or police to keep the traffic in check so it all bogged down into a gridlock. After half an hour of getting absolutely nowhere a bunch of drivers had had enough and broke off from the roads and drove out into the dry grassy planes kicking up sand and dust heading for the exit. A consaiderable lot followed. Thankfully our own driver was a calm guy but we still tagged along for the ride. Of course it all ended in tears. Over at the exit area, the park grass was shielded from intrusion by a low yet effective stone lining. Only a few 4WDs manged to slip out and the others were doomed to race back to try and attain a
decent position in the queue again. Needless to say, the drivers waiting in line were not too keen to let anyone back in. All in all I think we spent some three hours or so in the cab before we finally got out, but the company was good and the air conditioning much appreciated. I took it upon myself to teach some fitting curses in Swedish, to much amusement.
On the ride downtown we drove past another traffic jam. Apparently there had been some type of incident involving a thief, and the road was covered in rupiah bills floating about the way you see it in Hollyowood movies when somebody blows up the bad guy's armoured transport/container/helicopter/whatever.
Finally out of the cab we arrived for an extravagant meal at a famous
Wong Solo restaurant doing Central Javanese food (thanks for reminding me Vanessa). The owner is famous in Indonesia for having four wives. We ordered in fried chicken, vegetables in a shrimp soup, squid, some kind of bread of beans and a set of remarkable fruit juices. I had a delicious one called Juice Dimadu (if I remember correctly that means mistress) which was a great mix of water
melon, pineapple and orange. Another example is the Juice Poligami(!) consisting of papaya, avocado and mango. Great stuff!
After the dinner we headed over to one of the Jakarta Exhibition Centres that ran a special exhibit on the history of the country. As you can see from the photos I had a run in with President Yudhono as well. The rest of the exhibition area was just as bewildering and bizarre as I've come to expect from Asia. In no apparent system various merchants and organizations were displaying their crafts and products; beds, qurans, toilet seats, assault rifles, oil paintings, Suharto memorabilia, steel bridge construction, armoured personnel carriers, septic waste compactors, police cars... you name it. All the branches of the military were present trying to top each other's exhibits. I've never seen an Army recruitment agency blasting "Who let the dogs out!" before. As we ended the day a taxi took us to our various destinations all over town and I did some laundry at the room, going to bed rather early, as tomorrow will be my daytrip to Sumatra.
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